There is this idealistic vision of the Internet as the great
equalizer. If Internet access is offered cheaply and enables the entire
population to have access, this becomes an equalizer that will level the
socio-economic barriers to success. In the beginning, Internet access was
quite expensive, especially since it was necessary to have a personal computer
and a telephone line. In time, there are more and more public access
facilities (e.g. libraries, Internet cabinas, etc), the internet population has
grown.

We will now cite some survey data from the 2003 TGI Brasil
study. This is a survey of 10,624 persons between the ages of 12 to 64
years old interviewed during 2003. Within the TGI Brasil study, 30.0% of
the respondents indicated that they had used the Internet within the last 30
days. When separated by socio-economic level, the results are shown in the
chart below. Internet access is still highly skewed by socio-economic
level. The argument would be that with falling costs and better
educational opportunities, the internet penetration will eventually catch
up. This is the experience in the more advanced Internet countries such as
the United States. This may or may

(source: 2003 TGI Brasil)

The argument would be that with falling costs and better
educational opportunities, the internet penetration will eventually catch
up. This is the experience in the more advanced Internet countries such as
the United States. This may or may not happen in Brazil. However, we
are more interested in another aspect of the development. We want to ask
the question about whether a lower-class person getting on the Internet means
full equality to all the services. In the next chart, we show the list of
activities that the Brazilian Internet users have engaged in over the past 30
days.

(source: 2003 TGI Brasil)

In the next graph, we show a correspondence map of the
relationship between Internet activities and socio-economic level. We note
the following:

Socio-economic level AB persons are much more likely to be
making financial investments, book airplane tickets, make reservations for
hotels and do on-line shopping. These are high-priced activities that
imply the ability to pay.

Socio-economic level C persons are more likely to be
checking out the news, reading magazines, checking out sports news, look at
dirty photos, and so on.

Socio-economic level D persons are more likely to play
online games, visit chatrooms, do instant messaging, and so on.

At the center of the correspondence map are those
activities that are common to all socio-economic levels --- etc, listen to
radio, listen to music, etc.

(source: 2003 TGI Brasil)

This information would suggest that the Internet will not make
people 'equals' overnight. The situation is perhaps no different from
opening a large public shopping mall --- it is true that everyone can come
inside the store, but you have to have money to buy the merchandise. Of
course, the shopping mall analogy is crude and far and away from being the whole
story of the Internet. Among many things, one can obviously point to
the photologs of Brazil
--- what shopping mall have tens of thousands of private citizens displaying
their photo albums in return for nothing?